A Successful Interrogatory — Les Misérables

An hour later, in the darkness of night, two men and a child presented themselves at No. 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. The elder of the men lifted the knocker and rapped. They were Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette. The two old men had gone to fetch Cosette from the fruiterer's in the Rue du Chemin-Vert, where Fauchelevent had deposited her on the preceding day. Cosette had passed these twenty-four hours trembling silently and understanding nothing. She trembled to such a degree that she wept. She had neither eaten nor slept. The worthy fruit-seller had plied her with a hundred questions, without obtaining any other reply than a melancholy and unvarying gaze. Cosette had betrayed nothing of what she had seen and heard during the last two days. She divined that they were passing through a crisis. She was deeply conscious that it was necessary to be good. Fear is mute. Moreover, no one guards a secret like a child. But when, at the expiration of these lugubrious twenty-four hours, she beheld Jean Valjean again, she gave vent to such a cry of joy, that any thoughtful person who had chanced to hear that cry would have guessed that it issued from an abyss.

Fauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew the pass-words. All the doors opened. Thus was solved the double and alarming problem of how to get out and how to get in. The porter, who had received his instructions, opened the little servant's door which connected the courtyard with the garden. From that point they reached the inner reserved parlor where Fauchelevent, on the preceding day, had received his orders from the prioress. The prioress, rosary in hand, was waiting for them. A vocal mother, with her veil lowered, stood beside her. A discreet candle made a show of lighting the parlor. The prioress passed Jean Valjean in review. There is nothing which examines like a downcast eye. You are the brother? Yes, reverend Mother, replied Fauchelevent. What is your name? Ultime Fauchelevent. He really had had a brother named Ultime, who was dead. From Picquigny, near Amiens. Fifty. Gardener. Are you a good Christian? Every one is in the family. Is this your little girl? Yes. You are her father? Her grandfather. The vocal mother said in a low voice: He answers well. Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. The prioress looked attentively at Cosette, and said half aloud: She will grow up ugly. The two mothers consulted in the corner, then the prioress turned round. Father Fauvent, you will get another knee-cap with a bell. Two will be required now.

On the following day, therefore, two bells were audible in the garden, and the nuns could not resist the temptation to raise the corner of their veils. At the extreme end of the garden, under the trees, two men were visible as they dug side by side. An enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each other: He is an assistant gardener. The vocal mothers added: He is a brother of Father Fauvent. Jean Valjean was regularly installed. He had his belled knee-cap. Henceforth he was official. His name was Ultime Fauchelevent. The most powerful determining cause of his admission had been the prioress's observation upon Cosette: She will grow up ugly. The prioress immediately took a fancy to Cosette and gave her a place in the school as a charity pupil. It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the convent. Girls who are conscious of their beauty do not easily become nuns. More is to be hoped from the ugly than from the pretty. Hence a lively taste for plain girls. The whole of this adventure increased the importance of good old Fauchelevent. He won a triple success: in the eyes of Jean Valjean, whom he had saved and sheltered; in those of grave-digger Gribier, who said he had spared him that fine; with the convent, which retained the coffin of Mother Crucifixion under the altar, eluded Caesar, and satisfied God. There was a coffin containing a body in the Petit-Picpus, and a coffin without a body in the Vaugirard cemetery. Public order had no doubt been deeply disturbed thereby, but no one was aware of it. The convent's gratitude was very great. Upon the archbishop's next visit, the prioress recounted the affair, making something of a confession and yet boasting of her deed. The admiration made its way to Rome. A note from Leo XII contained these lines: It appears that there is in a convent in Paris an excellent gardener, who is also a holy man, named Fauvent. Nothing of this triumph reached Fauchelevent in his hut. He went on grafting, weeding, and covering up his melon beds, without in the least suspecting his excellences and his sanctity.